


Precautionary Measures

by dustlines



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Castiel (Supernatural) is Not Okay, Episode: s04e20 The Rapture, Gen, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Missing Scene, Morally Ambiguous Character, Season/Series 04, Season/Series 08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2020-07-23 16:09:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20011108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustlines/pseuds/dustlines
Summary: Castiel begs Naomi not to take away his memories of the friendship he has built with the Winchesters, and Naomi considers the merits of his request.Excerpt:Inside of Castiel's mind, Naomi finds great fear. Her brother is afraid to lose his memories of the people he has come to befriend, including the Righteous Man.Unwise, Naomi thinks,to be so close to one's charge. She dulls the edges of Castiel's devotion, so that his fear is stronger than his loyalty to the man under his care. Only great anger, or even greater terror, can break through such a profound bond.





	Precautionary Measures

**Author's Note:**

> **CW** : mild descriptions of Naomi's memory-erasing methods (AKA, "Bible Camp")
> 
> This is my attempt to fuse season 8 mythology with Castiel's season 4 story, during which I suspect Naomi was sporadically messing around with his mind. Set during what I'm considering a "missing scene" from 4x20 ("The Rapture"), this occurs shortly before Cas' broken-voiced "I serve Heaven, not man" speech to Dean. I kept wondering — what did Heaven do to Castiel that frightened him badly enough to make him talk that way? This is my attempt to answer this question.
> 
>  **Inspired by this post** : ([x](https://xxfleurdelysxx.tumblr.com/post/25814133301/31100-pictures-of-castiel))

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Not for the first time, Castiel's actions are brought to Naomi's attention. Her brother has been behaving oddly on the battlefield, showing an irrational sympathy for humankind that surpasses even the preservation of his own family. As the Apocalypse requires soldiers who are obedient to Heaven's will and do not doubt their place in its wars, Naomi takes hold of Castiel when he is not expecting her and, in a gust of flight, she pulls him to her office for treatment.

Castiel doesn't remember her, at least until he _does_ remember her. This is normal. So few are permitted to remember her at all. Naomi takes pride in how forgettable she can make herself be.

Without wasting time, Naomi forces Castiel onto her operating table so that she can determine what is wrong with him. Alarmed, Castiel cries out and attempts to fight her off. In response, Naomi is forced to shove him down with the full weight of her wings, which is not inconsiderable. From Castiel's human vessel flow the scents of sulfur, blood, and leather, even though none of these things are visible on him. His palms are slick with sweat when she locks them into silver restraints that are made from the same Grace-cutting material as the blades every angel carries. To attempt to escape her would be to cut one's self open and possibly die, yet still some insist on resisting. Castiel, at least, is intelligent enough to stop moving his arms once he's identified the metal's power over him.

It's the first time in decades that Naomi has needed to reeducate her brother, and she shakes her head with a soft sigh. So much disappoints her nowadays. She wishes things were simple again, so that Castiel's rebellious tendencies could be quietly occupied by other, simpler things, like observing the evolution of life on Earth in secret, or charting the paths of interstellar beings from a safe, respectful distance. Certainly, Castiel should not be responsible for something as potentially disastrous as guarding the Righteous Man and his brother, simply because the humans seem to trust him to do so. The Apocalypse has made things so... disorganized.

Naomi's blade is light in her hand, and when she cuts into Castiel's mind, he cries out in horror and tries to kick her off, but she pushes her wings even firmer against him to hold him still. Panic makes the breath in his vessel's borrowed lungs quicken, but she ignores his. Almost no one is happy to see her until they leave her, when their minds have been cleared and they are content once more. She makes sure of this. It's part of her job, and it keeps her family safe.

Inside of Castiel's mind, Naomi finds great fear. Her brother is afraid to lose his memories of the people he has come to befriend, including the Righteous Man. _Unwise_ , Naomi thinks, _to be so close to one's charge_. She dulls the edges of Castiel's devotion, so that his fear is stronger than his loyalty to the man under his care. Only great anger, or even greater terror, can break through such a profound bond.  
  
Diving deeper, Naomi finds that Castiel is also afraid now of his own kind, and that this is a recent fear, growing stronger. Naomi nearly pulls back, wondering if she has contributed to this fear. More presently, Castiel is afraid that, if Naomi harms his memories irreparably, his human friends will not know to seek him out to remind him of what he has forgotten, which he believes will cause the present war to be lost. Naomi frowns to realize which side Castiel considers most favorable to win, as that side is not that of Heaven's own. How could an angel not want paradise for his family?

Even more surprising, Castiel's fear of not being found by the Winchesters after he leaves Naomi's office is not purely strategic, either. Castiel's fear has led him to crave reassurance, even from mortals. Naomi finds — although she is confused by it — that Castiel, above all else, does not want to fight alone, and he has very specific categories for who he wishes to fight by his side.  
  
Naomi takes a moment to control the strange, conflicted anger that brews in her. No angel is _ever_ alone, of course. Even she has her purpose, though she is isolated in so many ways. That is why God created all angels to inhabit the same family, every one of them brothers and sisters to each other. Still, Castiel is so afraid of being alone that he could potentially damage himself with it, a trait of emotion that is becoming all too common in the Heavenly host, and one Naomi is finding difficult to fully remove from them, in part due to her own reluctance to ignore it as a reoccurring theme. Patterns, she believes, are important to pay attention to, especially changing ones.  
  
Putting her own doubts momentarily to the side, Naomi does what she can to repair and to calm Castiel's mind so that he can be protected from the damage she is causing it. She knows she is a necessary component of Heaven, but she will not abuse her power by using it only to destroy. Even those in her family who seem beyond repair, she has to at least try to save. This fear of being alone, she will try to ease with the reassurance that he serves a Heavenly purpose, not a human one.  
  
Coaxing her thoughts into his, Naomi reminds Castiel of the lessons he and every other angel are meant to remember. She reminds him that he is beholden to Heaven, and that no other world can rule him. In response, he whimpers on her operating table, his human vessel's body twitching as his eyes bleed. With the soft breaths he is making, Castiel is still begging Naomi to let him remember who he is. He is telling her that the human world is _important_ , that the people in it are _brave_ , that he is meant to _protect_ them, not to fight against them.  
  
He then dares to suggest that Heaven has perhaps become corrupt, that there is a part of their family that has somehow become selfish and removed from God's will, and that Castiel needs to _remember_ this in order to restore the balance.  
  
Naomi stops then, withdrawing her blade from Castiel's mind. Released from her hold, even if not from the restraints around his wrist, he shudders beneath her and shuts his all-too-human eyes, relieved to be without pain even if only for a moment. It would be a lie to claim there had been no recent whispers about the archangels, and about how the Apocalypse they had predicted for many millenniums was, in fact, occurring too soon.  
  
This leaves Naomi with a dilemma. She has already removed many seeds of deceit from Castiel's mind (at least enough to make him obedient again), but not as much as she had plans to remove. _Perhaps_ , she thinks, _it would be beneficial to track Castiel, in order to see what he will do with his suspicions_. Through him, perhaps Naomi can discover if these suspicions have any merit, and if her siblings have, in fact, taken a step too far. As she rarely ventures from the office where she is meant to stay, it might be worthwhile to allow Castiel to be her source of enlightenment.  
  
When Naomi is motionless for too long, lost in her thoughts, Castiel opens his eyes and fixes her with a blank stare. At a certain point in her process, her patients often become too overwhelmed by their experiences to do much else. She smiles down at him, and strokes back his hair. Weakened, he shuts his eyes and leans into her palm, grateful for small comforts after being in pain for so long. She thinks it is sad to see an angel reduced to a being so desperately in need of hope and reassurance, instead of remaining sure and full of godly purpose.  
  
"I will be merciful this time," she soothes him, and when she erases herself from Castiel's mind, she deigns to leave with him the names of those two humans he has come to treasure. His relationship with them may have been altered somewhat by the actions she has already undertaken, but she has faith that they can be rebuilt.  
  
She wonders momentarily if this is wrong, and if what she is doing will have unforeseen consequences, but she dismisses this concern quickly enough. After all, these people Castiel has come to care for are only humans. In the end, what harm could humans possibly cause, against the awesome might and will of Heaven itself?  
  
She decides she is safe, and that her family is safe as well, and then, with only part of the memories she had planned to take from him removed, she lets Castiel go.  


.

  
2013.06.14

[.](https://dustlines.livejournal.com/24681.html)

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Please leave comments if you enjoyed this! It helps me feel my words matter.

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